Last week, the Washington Post reported that the Department of Homeland Security would soon launch massive raids and deportations of children and adults who lost their case to get asylum in the United States after fleeing in Central America.
Marc Rosenblum who works for the Migration Policy Institute cites the lack of legal representation and in many cases and the Byzantine nature of immigration courts that left many asylum seekers in the dark.
"[It] has never been a border crisis, it has always been an immigration court crisis," says Rosenblum. He says many of these people weren't given a real chance to make their case to stay. "The vast majority of these deportation orders are issued in absentia because they don't know about their court dates."
Jonathan Ryan, executive director of RAICES, a legal aid group that specializes in refugee legal aid, says that a lawyer makes all the difference in these cases, "We know that those few people who
Guests:
- Marc Rosenblum, deputy director, U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute
- Jonathan Ryan, executive director of the Refugee Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services
